In the coming term, the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM) has a vital opportunity to counter the ongoing gender backlash. The recent formation of the College of Commissioners has failed to achieve gender balance, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen achieving only 40 per cent female representation, offset by four of the six vice-presidencies being women.
Moreover, equality issues have been subordinated into a joint portfolio titled “Preparedness and Crisis Management; Equality”. The lack of a specific commissioner for equality and the absence of gender mainstreaming in the Mission Letters are concerning in a context where anti-democratic forces threaten women’s rights.
In the new EU term, FEMM will prioritise advancing a robust legislative agenda, ensuring gender mainstreaming, guaranteeing proper implementation and evaluation of recent legislation, embracing “intersectionality”, and promoting an international alliance to counter the gender backlash.
It is crucial to advance a legislative agenda to guarantee women's rights across Europe, with a commitment to creating a European Charter of Women's Rights. Gender equality must be fully integrated into the EU treaties, particularly in relation to sexual and reproductive rights and parity. A parity directive is needed to ensure balanced representation in EU leadership. We will also work on the finalisation of the revised directive on victims' rights and the pending regulation on child abuse.
The European Care Strategy should evolve into a comprehensive “care deal” that considers paid and unpaid work, as well as the provision of public services and the organisation of work in companies. It is crucial to address disparities in the use of time and more inclusive educational pathways to move towards a model with less discriminatory labour markets and equity in paid and care work. Furthermore, we need to advance on topics already treated in the previous term such as women's poverty, representation in STEM, and prostitution.
Gender mainstreaming must be incorporated into all policies and processes, and we must ensure that the newly announced Gender Equality Strategy is adequate to this end. Policy foresight and gender-sensitive evaluation are essential to counteract the androcentric bias in legislation and political action, and it is necessary to have sensitive, gender-disaggregated statistics.
In addition to health, areas where gender gaps are particularly striking, including the green, demographic and especially digital transitions, as well as foreign policy, are also priorities for the current mandate. Sexual and reproductive rights, including access to contraception and legal and safe abortion, should be treated as human rights and be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It is also essential to implement and monitor the new gender equality legislation passed in the last legislature, including the directive on gender-based violence, which was a major step forward in the equality agenda. We must also delve deeper into the principle of intersectionality.
Finally, in this populist moment, the ultra-conservative mobilisation against the misnamed “gender ideology” represents a new, coordinated and strategic political configuration that places gender-critical views at the forefront of the attack on democracy. The new mandate offers the opportunity to adopt a determined approach to gender equality, positioning it as a priority and a fundamental pillar for democracy in Europe to stop the backlash.